“To call him?” She laughed quietly. “Go see if he’s interested. I’ll cover for you if he wants to take a look at it today.”
“You’re a godsend,” I said in a miserable voice.
I sat in a very unladylike position in my white skirt, hugging my stomach, my legs spread wide. We were in a private back room with our very own vending machine and luxurious water fountain. April didn’t mind the enclosed space, but I preferred sitting on the benches outside during my breaks. She handed me her phone and I called the number.
Lorenzo (the potential buyer or hapless victim, depending on how you looked at it) didn’t converse much over the phone, but he did want to hear the specs. Manual transmission, new tires, ninety thousand miles, and semen in the back seat.
I left out the last part.
We agreed to meet at a mall I’d been to once before when I was twelve to have my ears pierced. Lorenzo stood next to a big black truck like he’d described to me. He wasn’t what I expected. He wore a pair of pale green khakis and a black tank top with writing on it. Something just didn’t feel right as I pulled into the parking space and looked at his expensive truck. But those moments are when you convince yourself that you’re overreacting and maybe he was purchasing the car for his girlfriend.
Lorenzo towered beside his sharp, heavy-duty truck with chrome wheels and tinted windows. His straight hair was as black as the truck and fell past his shoulders. He looked Native American with his tanned skin and high cheekbones.
I wiped my brow with my clammy hands, still feeling sick. When I turned off the engine, he slowly paced around the car and began appraising it. I stepped out and felt the scorch of heat from the asphalt.
“Hi, I’m Alexia Knight. You must be Lorenzo.”
“How does she run?” he asked.
“Like a dream.”
His eyes briefly darted to mine. I stepped back with my keys in hand so he could sit in the driver’s seat and check out the interior.
Lorenzo looked at every detail and then glanced at the back seat. I wondered if there was a sex aura back there that psychics could see.
“Has anyone ever worked on the transmission?”
“Nope. But the alternator was repaired, or replaced. Don’t ask me which; I didn’t handle that.”
“Let me see the keys,” he said eagerly.
I hesitated, looking around.
Lorenzo’s hands slid down his pants and stopped at his knees. “If I drive off in your car, feel free to take my truck,” he offered, tossing me his own keys. “Is this in your name or do you have a boyfriend on the papers?”
“It’s my car.”
“How are you going to get around without it?” He laced his fingers together and watched me carefully. “Is someone going to drive you, or do you have another car lined up?”
Had I been sitting, I would have squirmed in my seat. “Do you have an offer?”
Lorenzo pinched his chin, tassels swinging from the leather bracelet on his wrist. “Your asking price and dinner. You didn’t mention a boyfriend, so I’m going to take a chance and guess that you’re just as available as this car.”
I threw his keys and they hit the concrete with a jingle. “I’m not for sale. Get out of my car if you’re not going to buy it.”
“I’ll double the price for a date.”
“What the hell do I look like, a prostitute?”
“It looks like this was a waste of your time and mine. I drove all the way out here hoping I would get a serious offer. I don’t come with the car and this isn’t a sex transaction. Get out of my car or I’m calling the police.”
Lorenzo stood up and approached me. I nearly fled, but that stupid impulse was quashed by the logical voice in my head, once again, trying to convince me that I was overreacting.
Except the skull and crossbones tattooed on his arm caught my eye. As did the matching design on the back of his truck window. Men who had skulls on their bodies were usually trouble.
I backed up and he caught my arm. But gently. Not in the way that would make a girl throw her knee against a man’s balls. It was a soft touch with just the very tips of his fingers, and his features no longer appeared hard and unpredictable. Lorenzo’s brown eyes were as warm as his hands and melted me like caramel in the summer sun. To look at him, Lorenzo was a very handsome man, but I hadn’t made up my mind on his personality.
“My offer is serious. I won’t hurt you, Alexia. I just think you’re exceptionally pretty and I want to show you I’m interested.”
Well,
“Do you really want to buy my car?”
He glanced over his shoulder and chuckled warmly. “Not really. Sorry, it’s not what I’m looking for.” And then his eyes melted over me and my breath quickened. He really wasn’t so bad if you didn’t notice the skull inked on his left arm.
“I need to go,” I sputtered.
“Alexia, please don’t go without giving me your number. Let’s have one conversation and you can decide if I’m a bad guy or not. Unless you have a boyfriend.”
Maybe it’s the mouth-twist thing girls do when someone brings up a boyfriend who doesn’t exist, but he read my expression and a satisfied look glittered in his eyes. Lorenzo pulled a pen from his back pocket and held the tip to his palm. “Number?”
And like a freaking zombie, I found myself reciting my home number. Why not? I’d met the worst mistake of my life in a shop full of sugar. Maybe I’d meet the man of my dreams in a rundown parking lot by a shoe store and an overflowing dumpster.
“I’ll ask around to see if anyone I know is interested in the car,” he promised me. “I know what it’s like to have something you want to get rid of, but for some reason, it keeps hanging around like a curse.”
“Thanks,” I said. “The car needs to go, so if anyone you know wants to take a look at it, give them my
He smiled. Not the kind with teeth, just a broad smile with his lips pressed together. “I’ll do that, Alexia. It was a pleasure to meet you,” he said, raising his hand in a wave. “And my name is Lorenzo Church. Friends call me Enzo, business associates call me Church, but you can call me anytime.”
He bowed his head, and I listened to his black boots tread heavily on the pavement as he walked back to his truck.
The next day, I called in sick. I’d caught a bug of some kind and it was slowly taking my body hostage. My fever hovered around one hundred degrees Fahrenheit for most of the day. Stuff like this happened a lot when I first started working at the shop. Kids collected germs, which is why I became vigilant about wiping down the counters with sanitizer. But lately, I’d been lucky with my health. I’d managed to accrue about twenty sick days, so I made the executive decision to use some of them.
I also handled food and giving our customers Ebola wasn’t high on my list for the top ways to earn a promotion.
It was the night of Naya’s party, but I’d already told her I wasn’t feeling well and wouldn’t be able to make it. I called April at work to let her know she was still invited, but she shied out and made up an excuse about
